I picked up a too-good-to-be-true offer from one of the websites that offer holiday deals from Dubai.

Thailand, a week in the Evason Six Senses, Pranchanburi, Hua Hin, accommodation was a private villa/room with plunge pool, a week’s stay, less than a week in a comparable Dubai hotel…

Whoop-whoop,  a bargain, ok, it was August, sussed the weather and it is the rainy season in August in Thailand, but, living in Dubai with temperatures of 45+ during August, a holiday in a rainy season is actually quite tempting and beach holidays are long past now, exploring is the key…. so, swiftly booked and including a 3-day tour of Chang Mai, Maehongson and Pai, The Golden Triangle area, added to maximize the Eid holiday leave I could take from work.

On arrival at the Evason, after settling into plunge pool villa (divine) we took a stroll around and instantly understood why the bargain holiday was on offer. The Evason sits behind the beach road, a short cross to the beach, but the beach road was being re-done, completely dug up with bulldozers, JCB’s and huge boulders stacked for the sea defenses, so there was no access to the beach at all.

Well, that didn’t matter in the slightest to us…we really had found a bargain that suited us, lying on a beach is in the past…

The area is all within the most beautiful National parks so we hired a scooter and trundled around exploring and enjoying the beauty of the forest area.

One of the joys of Asia is stumbling across exuberantly decorated temples and strange statues in odd places. Thailand didn’t disappoint. The color is always vibrant, unexpected and always a glorious discovery.

Pootling along on the bike, past prawn farms, then suddenly finding monkeys on the side of the road and then to arrive in a tiny little coastal fishing village to be greeted by a magnificent crab roundabout highly decorated in gold and red, well, it’s an assail on the senses and a lift to the spirits.

Some of the sights…

Between Pranchanburi and Hua Hin there is a beautiful forest park, so one day we decided a little scooter ramble was the order of the day. Very luckily I’ve been able to pick up the routes and shrines on Google maps, so I can find the temples and shrines many years on.

One of the joys of trundling around on a scooter is that as a passenger and pootling along at a slow place, I  have the time to scan the surroundings and spot anything that looks interesting. Parking is always easy on a scooter, just stop…

Spotting a golden head towering above the trees we stopped at a shrine. I think this one is Jow Por Big Mountain Shrine, but I can’t be sure….stunning buddhas though… I was quite awed on seeing these in the mountaintop setting, in perfect light high above a beautiful landscape…

Just down the road, I spotted another golden buddha head and an odd crocodile…well, we just had to stop…this is Chao Mae Tubtim Thong shrine… I cannot find the reason for the gi-enormous crocodile sculpture at this shrine, but it was unexpected and quite fascinating that in this beautiful place with glorious views and a truly stunning buddha statue there was a massive painted concrete crocodile..I’ve tried to research it, but without getting deeper into Thai Buddhism, I can’t find an explanation…the photos are worthy of posting though!